At 72, Raitt has earned accolades undeniably deserved for a career stretching 50 years. But she isn’t allowing plaudits to derail her ambition.
On Friday, Raitt releases “Just Like That,” her first album in six years. She recently launched a new tour – NRBQ, Lucinda Williams and Mavis Staples rotate as openers – and her set list, while peppered with fan favorites including “Something to Talk About,” “Love Sneakin’ Up on You” and her devastating version of “I Can’t Make You Love Me,” draws heavily from her sturdy new work.
Calling from Rochester, New York, on the eve of the kickoff of her eight-month tour, the engaging Raitt delved into some of the songs on “Just Like That,” her respect for her friend the late John Prine, and why she is “heartsick” about the war in Ukraine.
Question: In the last couple of months, you’ve been named a Billboard Icon and received a Grammy lifetime achievement award. Does the recognition still mean something?
Bonnie Raitt: Absolutely. The recognition of my fans still coming out after 50 years is a thrill, but I wasn’t expecting to get these awards, so it was a delight. I still do this for the fun of it and the respect and the joy that the fans continue to give me. Having said that, I was really honored to be chosen for these.
Q: This is your first new album in six years. Between your song “Livin’ for the Ones” and a cover of Toots and the Maytals (“Love So Strong”), were you thinking of your good friend John Prine, who died of COVID-19 in 2020, and Toots Hibbert, who also died in 2020 after being hospitalized with COVID-19-like symptoms?
Raitt: The first two nights of doing warm-up gigs for this tour in California and Nevada, I sang (Prine’s) “Angel From Montgomery” for the first time for a live audience since his passing, and it was very emotional. But in singing the Toots song and John’s song, it made them alive for me.
Q: “Waitin’ for You to Blow” is interesting in that it’s sung from the perspective of addiction.
Raitt: It’s alluding to the idea of recovery as an ongoing thing and to take stock of your behavior, but specifically the ways we delude ourselves. Like when the devil raises on your shoulder to tell you to have that piece of pie or tell someone their email went into a spam folder even though you forgot to read it. People think recovery has to do with not drinking or using or sex or gambling, but it’s really the way you have to take accountability for your behavior.
Q: Your guitar playing is as sharp as ever. How often do you play if you’re not recording or touring?
Raitt: I never play except when I’m going to be recording or writing. I love to play my acoustic guitar in my house and get the shape of what a song is going to be, but I don’t fire up the electric very much without the band. The less I practice, the more fresh it feels.
Q: As someone who has always been very visibly involved in numerous causes, this devastation in Ukraine must be hitting you hard.
Raitt: I’m as sickened and as worried as I’ve ever been. I haven’t been this heartsick in many years. I’m sending as much help as I can. I’m on my knees. I’ll continue to dedicate the shows to Ukraine because they’re going to need our prayers.
Q: You’re going to be on the road through November. How much did you miss it?
Raitt: What I missed the most was waking up in a different city and knowing I have to prove myself every night. I love traveling, I love visiting other cities. I have my favorite parks and restaurants. The sad thing about this tour is I can’t see family and friends along the way because I’m in a COVID bubble. But whatever it takes to stay safe. I’m just grateful this month is happening.
Melissa Ruggieri is the national music writer for USA Today. With more than 20 years of experience, she’s covered thousands of concerts and interviewed everyone from Billy Joel to Taylor Swift.
For more than fifty years, she’s seamlessly melded music and activism, inspiring contemporaries and newcomers alike with her guitar-playing prowess.
Bonnie Raitt resides among the redwoods.
She had always dreamed of living in Northern California like one of her heroes, Joan Baez, did, up in Big Sur. So years ago, once she had wrapped the tour for Nick of Time — her 1989 commercial breakthrough on Capitol Records that won her three Grammy Awards, including album of the year — she took a break and rented a furnished place in Marin County, outside San Francisco. She typically splits her time between here and Los Angeles. But for the past two years, the environment up north suited her especially well. “If I wasn’t going to get to play,” Raitt, 72, says today, verdant foliage encroaching on the window behind her, “at least I could hike and walk by the ocean and be near this incredible mecca of counterculture.”
It makes sense finding Raitt here. Marrying music and activism “is why I agreed to do this for a living,” she says. When she went to college at Radcliffe in the late 1960s, playing guitar was a hobby. “I was going to major in African studies and go work with the American Foreign Service and undo colonialism — yeah!” she says with a fierce little grunt. Amid the student strike of 1970, she fronted a ragtag band called the Revolutionary Music Collective. “ ‘The best things in life are free/When you take them from the bourgeoisie!’ — that was my hero line,” recalls Raitt with a laugh.
The gig was short, but the career Raitt would enjoy within a couple of years did become pretty revolutionary. Through her mentor, promoter Dick Waterman, she met and learned from the country-blues artists who were her idols — Son House, Mississippi Fred McDowell, Muddy Waters, Sippie Wallace — and became the rare woman of her era not only fronting a band but more than holding her own on guitar while doing so. Her slide guitar prowess, along with her casually confident stage presence and soulful alto, earned the respect (and friendship) of the men who were her closest contemporaries, like Jackson Browne and James Taylor.
Looking back now, Raitt is, characteristically, not terribly impressed with herself. “I mean, I was OK — I wasn’t that great,” she says with a shrug. “I was inexpensive, nonthreatening and interesting.” But she does admit that “it was an unusual thing to have a white woman — any woman — playing country-blues. I know having the chops of playing blues guitar got my foot in the door. I think I bypassed having to prove myself.”
Raitt achieved critical acclaim early on, and Warner Bros. Records signed her at just 21. But until Nick of Time — and, in the few years following it, her run of hit singles including “Something To Talk About” and “I Can’t Make You Love Me” that introduced her to a new generation of fans, the now elder millennials — commercial success wasn’t her calling card. By her own admission, she has always made her living on the road. Yet Raitt has unwaveringly stuck to her own artistic North Star and to the impulse that led her to music in the first place: using her voice to amplify causes like electing progressive political candidates, sustainable energy and environmental protection — she sets aside a share of her touring profits for them like “the sixth band member” — without ever letting them overshadow the music itself.
“She’s Bonnie Raitt — everyone knows that — but she’s created a community that both serves and benefits from her legacy,” says Brandi Carlile, who has developed a friendship with Raitt since writing to her as an admiring young artist early in her own career. “She’s absolutely beloved, she’s the greatest there is, and her talent absolutely dominates everything around it — but then why does everyone feel like they have a place [around her]? Like she’s the sum of her parts? It’s a superpower.”
And incredibly, Billboard’s 2022 Women in Music Icon Award recipient has done all that by and large as an interpreter, not a writer, of the songs on her albums — a fact that still can shock even a longtime fan. They all tend to sound like Raitt originals because she never simply sings a lyric; she inhabits it. “She was able to glean so much from these songwriters,” says Lucinda Williams, adding that she is often asked to play “Bonnie Raitt songs” that Raitt didn’t actually write. “She had good taste. When I first started out, it maybe held me back a little bit that I wanted to do so many kinds of music — rock and blues and country. But she did it, too, and she made it work. She was a great role model.”
One of those songs, from Raitt’s 1974 album, Streetlights, was by her longtime friend, the great singer-songwriter John Prine, who died from COVID-19 complications in 2020. Many artists have covered “Angel From Montgomery,” but it’s Raitt’s version that became definitive. It’s unsentimental yet deeply poignant, a plainspoken expression of longing for something more: “If dreams were lightning/And thunder were desire/This old house would have burned down a long time ago.”
She sang it for her idol Wallace, who told her of the many blueswomen who came before her, “stuck in marriages that were dead ends or being abused but had no agency to leave. Who couldn’t get free.” As a young feminist, she sang it for her mother, for her generation of women “who had to compromise and get no credit for the work they did and then later in life felt like they didn’t do enough.” Today, she sings it to honor Prine and for a whole different group of women around the world who, because of where they live or their circumstances, “don’t get a shot.”
The ones who, in other words, won’t get the chance to become a Bonnie Raitt.
“It was all I could do to try to sleep for seven hours — that’s how excited I was,”
says Raitt with a glimmer in her eye.
She has just come off three weeks in a Sausalito, Calif., studio with her band, prepping to tour her 18th studio album, Just Like That…, out April 22, and she’s positively buzzing. (Williams and Mavis Staples will join her as guests.) “It was like I was 8 years old every morning: ‘What am I going to wear today?!’ ” For Raitt — a die-hard road warrior who consistently fills theaters around the world — the past couple of years of never even being in the same room with her longtime crew were just crushing. “Night would come, and I’d go, ‘That’s it? That’s as cool as it’s going to get today?’ ”
Raitt learned very early on the value of delivering as great a performance in Topeka, Kan., as at Radio City Music Hall. Her father, John Raitt, was a dashing Broadway leading man in several classic musicals, but he never got too comfortable. “My dad chose to tour his hits regionally instead of just waiting for another Broadway show,” she recalls. “For him, bringing Oklahoma! and Carousel and The Pajama Game to the hinterlands was a life-fulfilling career that brought him great joy.” She also saw that without his proactive impulse to tour, he would simply be waiting for a call.
“I took that lesson to heart,” she says. “I can control which gigs I do, whom I open for, who opens for me when I get a little more famous, how much the ticket prices are, what to pay my band.” And when it came to a label deal, “I didn’t care if they offered me the moon — I would never let anybody tell me how to dress or what to record.”
Raitt spent the majority of her career at Warner Bros. and then Capitol before founding her own label, Redwing Records, a decade ago to release her music. (For Just Like That…, it’s partnering with Sub Pop for U.S. physical distribution and Alternative Distribution Alliance for global digital and ex-U.S. physical distribution.) All the while, she has managed to very much remain her own boss. In the late 1970s, after her version of Del Shannon’s “Runaway” became a hit, a bidding war over Raitt ensued between Warner Bros. and Columbia, which had been battling between themselves at the time. (James Taylor had recently left the former for the latter; Warner Bros. then signed away Columbia’s Paul Simon.) Raitt and her attorney, Nat Weiss, recognized her leverage — and renegotiated her Warner Bros. contract, “a really big deal” at the time, she would say later.
And while she doesn’t own her pre-Redwing masters, Raitt has worked out a “gentlewoman’s agreement” with Warner that she likes just fine: “They won’t sell my songs for commercials, and they won’t exploit my material without running it by me,” she explains. “I know I really serve at the good nature of the people who set that up for me, and at any point, some big monster could come in and say, ‘See ya later. If we want to use this for breakfast cereal, we will.’ But it kind of [works] better to work as a partner with your former label to maximize how you get your music out.”
That kind of calm rationale permeates how Raitt thinks about most aspects of her career, and as we talk, a kind of Bonnie’s Rules for Living seem to naturally tumble out of her. Take her advice for being an activist artist (a “radical when radical wasn’t cool,” as Carlile puts it): “It’s all about how you do it; making sure you vet where the money goes so people see you’ve really done your homework, and it’s the tone of it, too — I don’t preach from the stage.” Or her preferred vibe in the studio: “If you get the right people in the room, it’s work and it’s a joy. No idiots with bad attitudes, you know?” Or her approach to being a bandleader: “You have to risk not being liked to tell someone you’re not nuts about how they’re playing. If you don’t watch it, you push the Mom button, and nobody likes a bossy know-it-all. One thing that’s good about being in recovery — when I hurt someone’s feelings or squash their idea too soon, I apologize.”
Raitt has long been open about her past struggle with alcoholism, and her sobriety since age 37 informs another of her personal directives: how to stay not only active, but vibrant, 50 years into a music career. “All of us who are still out on the road, we didn’t used to warm up. Now we warm up our voices. We stopped trashing ourselves in our 30s, just about,” she explains. “You can’t keep up this pace if you don’t do yoga or hike or get some exercise. You have to get enough sleep. You have to keep people who are drains out of your circuitry and your life.” Getting sober “made a huge difference in how easy it is to be out on the road,” she continues. “But it’s a pleasure taking care of myself.”
On Just Like That…, Raitt certainly sounds like the best version of herself. Her voice has only become richer and more nuanced over the years, her range spanning a low purr all the way up to a floating falsetto, her ability to effortlessly bend a lyric to her will as supple as ever. “It’s show-based and what-I’ve-already-done-based,” she says of how she has always picked songs for an album: a few “killer ballads,” “a little bit of blues,” something unusual for the guitar and some “pile-driving rockers” toward the end.
Raitt produced the album, which, as usual, is studded with her hand-picked roster of songwriters (ranging from Al Anderson to her late friend Frederick “Toots” Hibbert of Toots & The Maytals), but also includes four originals by Raitt herself, the haunting title track among them. “More and more, the songs I’ve written lately are very personal,” she says. “I could farm it out to somebody more adept than I, but it’s nice to write on assignment. I don’t care if they’re not on everybody’s best-of list: They’re on mine.”
The subject of loss does come up — the close friends Raitt lost amid the pandemic and the heroes who took her under their wing and passed long ago. “But I knew being with those older people was such a gift,” she says. “They didn’t think about when they would go, and I didn’t think about it.” Like McDowell, Wallace and Prine, she has a life on the road she wouldn’t trade for the world. “To travel and wake up in five different cities a week and you’ve got to make sure you’re just as badass as the last time you came through?” she says, still sounding like a breathless 21-year-old. “It’s really fun!”
Bonnie’s Rules for Living, after all, don’t include stopping anytime soon. She always has a five-year plan, and when she is done touring Just Like That…, she’ll take a little break, and then the job will go on: time to think about the next record. “I mean, my dad toured till he was 86!” Raitt exclaims as if anything else would be plain lazy. “Look at Tony Bennett. Look at Mick and Keith. I don’t feel any urgency to finish. I feel like I’m pretty well understood, and I’ve felt understood this whole time.”
Bandana Blues is and will always be a labor of love. Please help Spinner deal with the costs of hosting & bandwidth. Visit www.bandanablues.com and hit the tipjar. Any amount is much appreciated, no matter how small. Thank you.
Bonnie has contributed a new recording of "Prison Bound Blues" written by Leroy Carr to a project called Better Than Jail, an extraordinary new album benefiting Free Hearts and Equal Justice USA. Better Than Jail is available everywhere today and features covers of iconic prison songs from Steve Earle, Taj Mahal,Margo Price, The War and Treaty and many more. The album seeks to raise awareness and support for the urgent need to reduce the harm of the criminal justice system. https://found.ee/BetterThanJail.
I'm so proud to have joined in with so many illustrious artists in creating this very special album in support of rural prison reform. Overlooked for far too long, this issue cuts across all cultural and political divides and deserves all our focused attention to finally bring about some swift and meaningful action. Better Than Jail is one of the most inspired and heartfelt albums I've been blessed to be a part of and I hope it sets a fire in hearts far and wide to join in our efforts." ~ Bonnie Raitt
Released on: 2024-10-04 Executive Producer: Brian Hunt Producer: Kenny Greenberg Producer: Wally Wilson Producer: Bonnie Raitt Recording Engineer: Jason Lehning at Sound Emporium Mastering Engineer: Alex McCollough at True East Mastering Production Assistant: Shannon Finnegan Mixer: Justin Niebank at Hounds Ear Music Publisher: Universal Music Corp. Composer, Lyricist: Leroy Carr ℗ Believe Entertainment Group and Wyatt Road Records
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The Fabulous Thunderbirds - Nothing in Rambling Ft. Bonnie Raitt, Taj Mahal, Keb' Mo' & Mick Fleetwood
In celebration of the band’s 50th Anniversary, The Fabulous Thunderbirds have just released Struck Down, their first studio album in eight years on Stony Plain Records. The ten-track album includes a wonderful cover of Memphis Minnie’s “Nothing in Rambling,” featuring longtime friends, T-Birds founding member Kim Wilson, along with Bonnie, Keb’ Mo’, Taj Mahal and Mick Fleetwood. — BRHQ
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Little Feat - Long Distance Call
“I’ve always loved Little Feat and this new incarnation of the band is bringing some serious heat, cred and new blood to their enduring legacy. Every Feat fan loves us some Sam. I’m so glad he’s now gotten a chance to step out front and center and put his spin on these wonderful blues songs. I loved singing "Long Distance Call" with him, always one of my favorites, and Scott slayed on slide. Know you’ll enjoy hanging out with us at Sam’s Place!" -- Bonnie Raitt
“Long Distance Call” was written by blues legend, Muddy Waters. It has Sam Clayton and Bonnie Raitt on vocals, Scott Sharrard on Dobro, Fred Tackett on acoustic guitar, Tony Leone on drums, and Michael “The Bull” LoBue on harmonica. The album also features Bill Payne on piano and Kenny Gradney on bass.
Little Feat have composed an album that’s their love letter to the blues entitled, ‘Sam’s Place.’ “Long Distance Call” plus many other blues classics are on this album. You can stream and order ‘Sam’s Place’ here: https://orcd.co/samsplace
Broken Hearts & Dirty Windows: Songs of John Prine, Vol. 2, the anticipated new John Prine tribute record from Oh Boy Records, is out today. Stream/purchase HERE.
Created as a celebration of Prine’s life and career, the album features new renditions of some of Prine’s most beloved songs performed by Brandi Carlile (“I Remember Everything”), Tyler Childers (“Yes I Guess They Oughta Name A Drink After You”), Iris DeMent (“One Red Rose”), Emmylou Harris (“Hello In There”), Jason Isbell (“Souvenirs”), Valerie June (“Summer’s End”), Margo Price (“Sweet Revenge”), Bonnie Raitt (“Angel From Montgomery”), Nathaniel Rateliff & The Night Sweats (“Pretty Good”), Amanda Shires (“Saddle in the Rain”), Sturgill Simpson(“Paradise”) and John Paul White (“Sam Stone”). Proceeds from the album will benefit twelve different non-profit organizations, one selected by each of the featured artists.
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Bonnie Raitt - Write Me a Few of Your Lines/Kokomo Blues
60 years anniversary celebration of Arhoolie
December 10, 2020
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Arhoolie Foundation celebrates it's 60th anniversary (1960-2020) with an online broadcast.
Bonnie Raitt - Shadow of Doubt
Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival
October 3, 2020
Hardly Strictly Bluegrass celebrates it's 20th anniversary with an online broadcast titled “Let The Music Play On”.
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Bonnie Raitt & Boz Scaggs - You Don't Know Like I Know
Farm Aid 2020 On the Road
Sam & Dave classic written by Isaac Hayes and David Porter.
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Sheryl Crow & Bonnie Raitt - Everything Is Broken
[Eric Clapton’s Crossroads 2019]
Eric Clapton, one of the world’s pre-eminent blues/rock guitarists, once again summoned an all-star team of six-string heroes for his fifth Crossroads Guitar Festival in 2019. Held at the American Airlines Center in Dallas, Texas, the two-day concert event raised funds for the Crossroads Centre in Antigua, the chemical dependency treatment and education facility that Clapton founded in 1998.
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'A Tribute To Mose Allison'
Celebrates The Music Of An Exciting Jazz Master
Raitt contributed to a new album, If You're Going To The City: A Tribute To Mose Allison, which celebrates the late singer and pianist, who famously blended the rough-edged blues of the Mississippi Delta with the 1950s jazz of New York City.
NPR's Lulu Garcia-Navarro talks to Bonnie Raitt about her friendship with the Mose Allison. They're also joined by Amy Allison — his daughter, who executive produced the album — about selecting an unexpected list of artists to contribute songs to the album.
Recorded on tour June 3, 2017 - Centennial Hall, London - Ontario Canada